(ThyBlackMan.com) The 2020 presidential election is one for the history books. President-Elect Joe Biden had:
- The largest number of votes ever cast for Presidential candidate (over 80 million).
- The biggest win over an incumbent president since Roosevelt over Hoover in 1932; and
- The highest election turnout, by percentage of registered voters, in over one hundred years.
Buried in an avalanche of election data was this nugget, the 477 counties Biden won represent seventy percent (70%) of the country’s Gross Domestic Product. The 2,497 counties Trump won were a mere twenty-nine (29%) percent. This Brookings Institution report found that Biden won “virtually all” of the counties with the biggest economies including Los Angeles, CA; New York, NY; Cook, IL; Harris, TX; and Santa Clara, CA. These, not coincidentally, are also the most diverse places in the United States.
Trump, again, won the majority of the white vote (58%), including white women (55%). His biggest vote margins were in South (53%) and Mid-West (51%). And while much has been made of his 70 million plus total, I ask if you know, which NFL team had the highest losing score in a Super Bowl?
Voters pick winning candidates
More historic than the turnout and other data though has been the massive resistance by the Republican Party to Biden’s win. A survey by the Washington Post found that only 25 of 249 congressional Republicans “openly acknowledge” Biden as the President-Elect. But then again, Americans have a short memory. These are among the same people (McConnell and Graham) who said they had “no intention” of honoring the oath of impartiality they took before Trump’s Senate impeachment trial.
The over three dozen lawsuits the Trump campaign and Republican National Committee filed challenging the election have essentially been laughed out of court. With judges writing in their rulings throwing these cases out things like, “We need specific charges and evidence, and we have neither” in one case, and “Voters pick winning candidates, not lawyers” in another.
Falling short on the legal front, Trump and his supporters are asking governors and legislatures to disregard election results in their states and substitute their own slate of Electors. The most extreme among them, like disgraced former National Security Advisor Michael Flynn and nominee for a top Pentagon position Scott O’Grady, calling for Trump to declare martial law and hold a new election.
Reactions differ at home and abroad
As far-fetched as this all sounds, Republican Party leadership has either been silent, or offered off-hand comments that Trump has “every right” to pursue legal remedies challenging election results; even though the Departments of Justice and Homeland Security and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, all led by Trump appointees, have issued statements that they have found no evidence of wide-spread voter fraud that would have changed election outcomes.
The reactions of leaders overseas have been dramatically different than here at home. Our traditional allies, Germany, France and Great Britain, were quick to issue congratulations to Biden and Harris and, so far, only Putin of Russia has failed to signal his support. Even China, belatedly, issued best wishes to the new administration.
You have to read foreign news outlets, like The Guardian, Haaretz, Al Jazeera and AllAfrica to get a real sense of the disdain the rest of the world has for our current leadership. For example, when the U.S. recently asked the United Nations to re-impose sanctions on Iran through invoking a provision in the nuclear deal Trump walked away from, not one of the remaining signatories agreed, and the U.S. sponsored Resolution failed miserably. A rebuke the domestic press barely covered.
Our democracy is fragile
Our institutions may be able to fend off this farcical assault on our democracy this time, but what of the future when a smarter, more competent politician tries again? What of a closer contest like Bush v Gore in 2000 when it came down to the winner of a single state: Whose brother, incidentally, was the sitting Governor and father a former President and head of the CIA?
If the election of 2020 has taught us anything it’s that our democracy is fragile and the peaceful transfer of power is governed more by “norms” than laws. Who knew the head of the GSA, an obscure official, could withhold the “ascertainment” necessary to start the transition process in the absence of any valid reason to do so? And that there was no ready legal remedy to compel her to move forward?
With the movements for racial justice and white nationalism both gaining momentum, and more adherents, the chaos and tumult of 2020 is giving birth to something new. It will be 2021 and beyond however, before we know what was born.
Staff Writer; Harry Sewell